Ukrainian forces have already received cluster munitions, a controversial weapon Washington promised to help Kiev in its slow counter-offensive against the Russian army, a Ukrainian general said Thursday.
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“We have just received them, we have not used them yet, but they can radically change the situation on the battlefield,” said Oleksandre Tarnavsky, commander of the counteroffensive in the south of the country, in an interview on American television CNN .
The United States announced last week that it would supply the weapons to Ukraine despite concerns about the long-term danger to civilians.
“The enemy also understands that by receiving these ammunition, we have an advantage,” Tarnavsky said, while assuring that the Ukrainian armed forces would not use these weapons in densely populated areas.
“The Russians believe that we will use it in all areas of the front (…) This is very wrong,” he argued.
US President Joe Biden said the decision to supply cluster munitions to Ukraine was “difficult” but stressed that Kiev needed additional weapons to replenish its depleted stocks.
Controversially, these weapons can disperse up to several hundred small explosive charges, which remain unexploded in the ground and can pose a threat to civilians after a conflict has ended.
They are banned in many countries, particularly Europe, which are signatories to a convention signed in Oslo in 2008, to which neither Russia, the United States, nor Ukraine are party.
The Kremlin has already threatened to take “countermeasures” if Kiev uses these bombs against Russian troops in Ukraine.